2012 - What a year it was!

The Trout Unlimited VETERANS SERVICE PROGRAM

From once a year family outings to weekly fly tying sessions at the VA; from rod building classes to casting lessons at a local pond; from overnight stays at 5 star destinations to drift boat excursions through pristine wilderness – during the past year some 600 Trout Unlimited member volunteers donated over 45,000 hours towards the healing of our nations recovering veterans.

Whether casting poppin’ bugs for feisty bluegills, or drifting woolly buggars through the lair of a brutish brown trout, TU members from 91 Trout Unlimited chapters in 34 states conducted some 300 outings with their local veterans.   As over 1000 of these veterans experienced the thrill of the strike, they also experienced the therapy of the water – the healing that comes from sharing with their fellow veterans the beauty and  rejuvenating power of our sport.

The Liberty Tree... The Patriot's Dream

On 14 August 1765, a crowd gathered in Boston under a large elm tree at the corner of Essex Street and Washington Street, originally called Orange Street, to protest the hated Stamp Act. It was the first public show of defiance against the Crown and spawned the resistance that led to the American Revolution 10 years later.

Because the Act applied to papers, newspapers, advertisements, and other publications and legal documents, it was viewed by the colonists as a means of censorship, or a "knowledge tax," on the rights of the colonists to write and read freely.

Back in the day I created a few different ancient coin replicas, and with what's going on in today's world the idea for this new one came to my wife. I created this to celebrate the ideals of our founders and to remind the current generation of their sacrifices and wisdom.  Not taking sides politically, I truly believe that we must re-embrace those ideals.  The pendant, the first in a separate line of jewelry titled, PATRIOT DREAMS (See America the Beautiful), is done in .925 Sterling Silver and is a one- of-a-kind.  I've signed it on the back and and its slightly larger than a US quarter.

If you are interested in this at just 75 bucks...just shoot me an email at clearwatermemories.gmail.com

“Liberty, when it begins to take root, is a plant of rapid growth”
Geo. Washington in a letter to James Madison dated March 2, 1788

Am I Obsolete?

Two posts back, in the one titled Back to the Future, I told you that I was re-entering the custom jewelry field after an absence of nearly thirty years.  Man have things changed!  As I made my way from one retail jeweler to another inquiring about their custom work and asking about the possibility of them casting up a few of my pieces (to keep my initial costs down I decided to farm out the casting process) I was amazed at what I was hearing.  Yes, a few of them did their own custom designs, but the idea of them doing them "by hand" was a quaint and ancient concept.

Nowadays, like so many things, the art of hand carving a piece of wax into a functional and beautiful design has been replaced by modern technology.  Have you seen those TV shows where automotive parts like wheels are made by a machine?  The ones where they simply enter a design into a computer, push the start button, and a few minutes later have a finished product?  Well, they are doing the same thing now with jewelry . . . rendering my hard earned skills obsolete.

Oh well – so be it.  Even if I could afford one of of those CNC machines, I would never consider using one – even on a rental basis.  There is something to be said for craftsmanship.  Will they someday invent a machine that can replicate Michelangelo’s work?  Let’s hope not.

What I’m offering here is jewelry done the old fashioned way.  The idea for these pieces came from my own imagination and their creation was accomplished with my own hands.  Sure, I use mechanical devices like polishing wheels affixed to electric motors to achieve the brilliant sterling silver shine, but these and the ones to follow will be done my way – the old way – the artistic way.

Each piece shown here is a one-of-a-kind creation.  No molds are used and each has its own personality and uniqueness.  They will never be duplicated.  They are each .925 Sterling, as marked on the back of each, along with my signature.

 

This one above, like the others, is one-of-a-kind.  This antiqued and highly polished pendant is an inch and three eights long and an inch and an eighth from the top of the bail to the bottom of the piece.  She weighs nearly 1/2 an ounce and is available for $80.00.

 

 

This one is two inches in length and weighs over 1/2 an ounce.  If you order soon it can be under your tree for a mere $110.00

 

 

This pendant, a fine brace of trout, comes in at over a half ounce in total weight.  The individual trout, all one-of-a-kind, measure, on average, one and seven eighths in length.  The entire piece is available at $140.00 and if you wish, the individaul trout are available for $45.00 each.

 

And finally let me stress that these are not "cookie-cutter" pieces, mass produced and taken from a well used mold.  Each was created by my own hands, at my jewelers bench from a piece of wax, a few carving tools, a few years of experience and a true love of the subject matter.

 

 

 

Woodies

Today is cold, cloudy, rainy and very reminiscent of the days I spent standing waist deep in my waders pass shooting Wood Ducks with my buddy Roger.  We'd set a few decoys of course, but these fast flying little guys usually paid them no mind at all.  As they would come whistling through the trees we'd blast away, and I'll never forget the day that I got a triple - three shots and three drakes down.  Shown here is a detail from an oil painting I must have done 20 years ago.  Ah...the memories.

Back to the future

 

Except for a few old friends, most of you know very little of my previous lives, and that is probably a very good thing.  Way back in the olden days of the early seventies, when Ms. Shirley and I bid adieu to the US Air Force, we were faced with a dilemma.  How is Alan going to support us?  Well Shirley’s dad saw an ad in the paper for an apprentice goldsmith, and thinking that that that just might be the ticket to free up his spare bedroom and get us out on our own…he passed it on to me.

I applied for the job and lo and behold they hired me.  I went to work for what is called a trade shop.  That is a place that does ring sizing, stone setting and general jewelry repairs for local retail jewelers, and I was apprenticed to their senior goldsmith to learn the craft of turning precious metals into artful designs that the ladies would wear.  I got pretty good at it, but when my instructor began withholding information and techniques in fear that I might learn too much and be a threat to his income – I went out on my own.  That was back in the day when original, one-of-a-kind jewelry creation became the rage and I developed a good reputation for turning it out.  Which led to a rewarding multi- year career as a retail jeweler and wholesale supplier of fine gold jewelry.

Fast forward to the present.  As if I don’t have enough to do, I am revisiting my past.  Yes, I’m getting back into jewelry design.  I broke out the rusty old tools, grabbed some wax and started carving.  You may have heard of lost wax casting . . . well, what you see here are the original wax models - in various stages of completion - of some pendants that I will be soon casting into sterling silver.

So, stay tuned for the finished products, and if anyone knows of a good and cheap source of midnight oil, please let me know!  And know that the next pictures will be MUCH better.

Spring Creek Brown

Spring Creek Brown

 

The original of this painting measures 16 x 20 and is available, framed.

If you are interested in a limited edition print they measure 11 x 14 and are printed on

100# Archival paper.  The edition size is 100 and they are available for $50.00

This series, entitled Native Faces, includes the Spring Creek Brown,

the Southern Appalachian Brookie, the Westslope Cutthroat and the Redband Rainbow.

Healing

We were a pretty big crowd.  Including the 11 veterans, the TU guides, the supporters and donors, we must have numbered at least 75 souls.  The room was packed shoulder to shoulder.  We had gathered at a local restaurant on Friday night to get the introductions made and lay plans for a weekend of fishing in the beautiful north Georgia mountains around the town of Blue Ridge.

Amidst the noise and between bites of pizza and pasta, the local TU volunteers in our Veterans Service Program from the area’s four chapters engaged with the vets who had traveled from varied locales across the southeast.  Some conversation came easily and some did not. 

As with all of our outings, we had vets with visible injuries.  There was no shortage of canes, braces and other walking aides - and there were vets with the hidden wounds of PTSD and Traumatic Brain Injury. For them, the dialog was protected.  Loud conversations and the general mayhem of big gatherings do not mix well with these folks.  Over near the wall sat a perfect example.

We had received an email a few weeks back from this veteran’s wife, asking if there was any way that her husband could get involved with our local chapters.  He had been suffering for years with the mental issues that so many veterans have.  The VA had an ample supply of drugs to ease his pains and they were all too willing to subscribe them.  “Here son, go down to pharmacy, get this filled, come back in two months and we’ll give you some more.”  The wife, his primary care giver, was dealing with a man in pain.  A man with issues only slightly masked by the drugs, so she bought him a John Boat with the hope that a few hours out on the local lake would bring some joy and relief.  Instead, it brought frustration.  He wasn’t catching anything and his depression worsened.  Then she saw a news article about Project Healing Waters and she reached out for help.

During this same period, final plans were being made for a veteran’s event in north Georgia to be named RIVERENCE.  A local business man, who just happened to be a TU Life Member, had an idea, and in coordination with the Blue Ridge Mountain chapter they partnered with Project Healing Waters, located some very willing donors and got the ball rolling for what everyone agreed was a worthy cause.

Over the course of this very special weekend our veteran came out of his shell.  Through the color guard ceremony, the concert, the stream-side casting lessons and the fish catching practice session on a well stocked pond on Saturday, we began to see a few smiles.  With each fat rainbow landed the smiles got wider and Sunday’s outing on the Toccoa River was equally special.  Teamed with his TU guide, our guy experienced in his own way the healing that all of the other vets experienced in theirs.

At the conclusion of the weekend as we were saying our good-byes, the wife – with tears flowing – told us that for the first time in many years they had hope.  She told us that the experience of being with and talking to his fellows in similar circumstances had a profound effect.  She said that the visibly real appreciation, love and concern they had received from the TU members was life changing.  And she said that there was not one bit of hype in the promise we had given about the healing power of the water.

Exploring the Rockies

Day One

All of us  involved in the Veterans Service Program- either working in partnership with Project Healing Waters or working independently - are constantly on the look-out for new waters. We try to take our vets out on the water at least once a month, and the opportunity to explore new venues that might provide the therapeutic healing that we are after is a treat. I know, it’s a tough job, but somebody has to do it. We can’t just turn our vets loose on untested waters! Such was the case this past week for Ryan Harman and I. Though we weren’t heading to the Rockies out west, the “Rockies” we were headed to take no backseat to their western cousins.

A little over a year ago I was contacted by a Sister from the The Community of the Transfiguration, a religious order, inquiring about our Veterans Service Program and asking if we might be interested in utilizing a stream that they controlled. Of course, she had my full attention. I heard no more about it until two weeks ago when I received a call from our friend Tom Fanslow, Land Protection Director.from the Carolina Mountain Land Conservancy, and we set a date to walk the property. Tom was the perfect guide for us as his group has worked with the Sisters to preserve the property and he was intimately familiar with the stream and its surrounding terrain.

Turns out the stream is only a few miles away from our PHW program in Asheville, and while both Ryan and  I were familiar with the stream, neither of us had explored this particular stretch of it.  We met up with Tom and the properties care-takers and headed down to the Rocky Broad.  The stream runs through the little North Carolina towns of Bat Cave and Chimney Rock (famous for the filming of Last of the Mohicans), carving out a beautiful boulder strewn gorge as well known for its flooding potential as its trout fishing and film career.  The Sister’s property was upstream, running for a couple of miles up to the headwaters.

The caretakers have done a fine job of maintaining the property and though we had no fishing gear with us, and saw no trout, we did see it’s potential. (Ryan later talked to an old timer that had sampled these waters many years ago and we’re confident, based upon his recollections and our observations, that it will sustain a good population of trout if seeded properly.) Access for some of our veteran participants – the ones with limited mobility – will be a problem, but for those that can handle a bit of boulder hopping it will be an ideal location to get out and enjoy. We were assured that the stream’s upper reaches hold a pretty good population of native Southern Appalachian Brookies and on our next visit – with fly rods in hand – we intend to verify that claim.

Day Two

Then on Friday, Ryan and I grabbed our fishing gear and met up with Damon Hearne, TU’s Southeast Land Protection Coordinator, to travel up to the Tennessee border to check out what's known as the Rocky Broad property. Damon and TU members throughout the region have been very active in preserving this marvelous property and to quote from our TU website, “Rocky Fork, a 9,624 acre parcel named after the pristine trout stream that runs down its center, creates a vast, unfragmented haven with over 16 miles of stream, approximately 4 miles being classified as a hybridized population of Southern Appalachian Brook Trout. According to the U.S. Forest Service, the property is the largest unprotected high-elevation tract of land in the southern Appalachian Mountains.”

Well, Ryan and I have fished a lot of waters and we both agreed that neither had ever wet a line in a more beautiful location.  This place is incredible.  A recent episode of TU’s On The Rise program featured Damon guiding the host on the Rocky Fork, and the scenery they captured on film was impressive.  But that viewing and my weak efforts to capture it with my cell phone camera do not do it justice.  Yes, the place is amazing.

We caught numerous wild rainbows up to about 10 inches, and even though told that we were not high enough to expect the native brookies, Ryan did catch one little one.  If we can con Damon to take us further up the mountain – and if I can handle the hike – we may yet get into the thick of the natives.  In the meantime though, like the Rocky Fork, with a bit of a climb and a lot of rock-hopping, we’ll try to get a few vets up to sample this fantastic place.

A nice Rocky Fork Rainbow



Cherokee Fly Tyers Challenge

This year’s very special veteran’s event in Cherokee, NC comes with a new twist!
Each year the Eastern Band of the Cherokee Nation celebrates their culture, history and crafts with an Indian Fair, and to help them celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Fair, Project Healing Waters and Trout Unlimited will be featured guests as we provide demonstrations and workshops for fair goers and some great fishing and tying opportunities for Project Healing Waters veteran participants.

But there’s more. We have cooked up a fly tying competition for any current participant in of a PHW or TU Veterans Service Program. On Friday, October 5th a select group of judges will crown the first Cherokee Fly Tyers Challenge Champion.

Here are the rules:
Participants must submit hand tied flies of any type ( dry, streamer, nymph, etc.)
Each submission must be 3 of the same pattern.
You may enter as many submissions as you like.
Flies must be received by September 30, 2012

Judges will score the flies based on the following:
Fishability – Is this a fly you could fish with (floatation, use of weight, etc.)?
Use of materials – creative use of materials
Creativity – imaginative design
Technique – basic tying skills (size, proportion, spacing)
Overall Effect – Would this fly catch fish?

All flies submitted will become the property of PHWFF for distribution and use amongst its programs nationwide and at its discretion.

Send entries to PHWFF / Attn: Ryan Harman / P.O. Box 1400 / Flat Rock NC / 28731
Include your name, contact info, PHWFF program affiliation and of course FLIES

TOP TYER WINS PRIZE PACKAGE WORTH $500.00
Including prizes from Vedavoo, TFO, Metz, Trout Unlimited and many others

Southern Appalachian Brookie

So, here's the brookie.  Next on the list for this 4 trout series will be the rainbow.  I've collected all the reference material  - it'll be a Redband Rainbow - and will get started putting some paint to canvas after the holiday.  Happy Fourth of July!

...it's a start

There is always a risk in showing a work "in progress" but hey, why not?  You might be looking at this Southern Appalachian Brookie and be wondering, "What is this crap all bout?"  But the upside is that you might look at the finished product in a few days  and say, "WOW!"  

The purpose - at this stage -  is to get some paint on the canvas and color over all of that intimidating white space.

Spring Creek Brown

OK...I know the photo is lousy.  Cell phone cameras have their limitations.  But until I get a response from Pentax regarding my broken shouldnt' be broken camera, it'll have to do.  As soon as my friend and neighbor Chas, the greatest photographer on the planet, (see Shoot the Light) returns from one of his international photo seminars and can take a shot of this, I'll have something very professional to post. Until then, I hope you enjoy my very unprofessional effort.  I'm thinking of naming this series "The Blue Collar Series" after the comment from my blogger buddy Howard from Windnots and Tangled Lines, after my last post.  I think he nailed it.  I can't wait to get started on the brookie...or maybe I'll start the rainbow.

New project

This will be a series of four paintings - a cutthroat, a brown, a brook and a rainbow - and they aren't going to be the hook-jawed monsters that we all dream about catching. Nope, they are going to be the more common everyday varieties. The beautiful 10 inchers that frequent our nets more often.

The top painting, a Westslope Cutthroat, is about an hour from being finished, but I was so pleased with it I couldn't wait to start the brown shown below it. The brown has a long ways to go. I've got learn to focus! One at a time Alan! One at a time.

Spruce Pine Veterans Outing

Last Friday afternoon our special guests began arriving at our lodging place in Spruce Pine, North Carolina, a repurposed schoolhouse from the 1930’s now known as the Pinebridge Inn. We were to greet vets from our TU VSP/Project Healing Waters programs from the Carolinas, and Tennessee.

A few weeks earlier, Ryan Harman, a PHW Board Member, Pisgah TU member, and the Program Lead of the Asheville PHW program put the word out that a select few veterans from the area were to be invited to spend a day on Rock Creek, a beautiful little stream hiding in the shadows of Roan Mountain in western North Carolina and managed by the guys at River's Edge Outfitters in Spruce Pine. As most of the vets had heard of the place from the reports of prior outings, filling the nine veteran quota was easy and quick.

Friday night’s creek side dinner was spoiled when we received a call from the caterer that due to a quickly passing thunderstorm her set-up on the stream was being threatened by rising waters. No problem. We’ll eat at the Inn. And as it turned out, those rising waters were a blessing in disguise.

When we arrived at the creek early Saturday morning the well drained grounds were fine, and due to the slight coloration of the water, the creek was even finer. That little touch of color should have put the normally leader shy trout on warning . . these fishermen meant business and with the ability to be armed with 3x tippets . . . landing a few of the creek’s bruisers was a certainty.

But turning our vets loose on those big guys would have to wait until the completion of the three seminars that we had planned - Jesse Connor from Trout Dancer Rod Company conducting a dry/dropper seminar, Dick Engelhardt sharing his expertise on streamer fishing, and Paul Bourcq from the NC Fly Fishing Team, passing along his line management techniques. Each veteran had the opportunity to sit in on each seminar and when it came time to practice their new skills it wasn’t long before the words, “Fish on!” were heard up and down the stream. By days end each of our vets had landed his share of rainbows – most of them in the 18 to 24 inch range. The smallest fish landed (not counting a horny head or two) measured twelve inches.


Paul Bourcq's line management seminar



Dick Engelhardt's streamer fishing seminar



Jesse Connor's dry/dropper seminar...and the results

We all had a fantastic time. The weather finally cooperated and the fishing was great. Best of all - that "winding down" time at the end of the day and the fish stories that were shared. The ones caught and the ones that got away. The memories, the camaraderie, the sharing.



Special thanks to the Pinebridge Inn for their great hospitality, and to Joe Street and Steve Mingle from River’s Edge Outfitters for making the water available. Our thanks to the seminar leaders who so freely shared their skills with our veterans, and the TU volunteer guides and mentors that made possible our one-to-one ration of guides to participants.



Outings just like this one are taking place across the country nearly every week. With over seventy of our TU chapters involved in the Veterans Service Program now, you can be sure that hundreds of our deserving veterans are experiencing the thrill of landing trout as they enjoy a holiday from their ongoing recoveries.

Showin' some skin...

Brown trout skin study, acrylic.